WASHINGTON — Aurora theater shooting victim Stephen Barton addressed members of Congress, gun advocates and cabinet secretaries at the White House Tuesday as Vice President Joe Biden urged Congress to take up gun-control legislation.

Barton had been on the road for six weeks on a cross-country bike ride with his best friend after college graduation, when
the 23-year-old bought tickets to the midnight showing of the new Batman movie.

“It wasn’t my choice to live any more than it was anyone else’s choice to die that night,” Barton said.

Barton, who now works for Mayors Against Illegal Guns, was among the 70 injured after a gunman opened fire at the packed movie theater July 20, 2012, in Aurora. Twelve people were killed.

The Connecticut native had 25 pellet and shrapnel wounds from a shotgun blast, the most serious injury was in his neck.

On his bike trip across country, Barton said, he had just come from spending “a month and a half experiencing the best the country has to offer, and then I experienced the worst.”

The Democratic-controlled Senate voted against legislation in April that would have expanded background checks for firearm purchases to gun shows and online sales, and so far no lawmaker who voted against it has announced a change of their vote.

“I know for a fact some of them now wonder whether that was a prudent vote,” Biden said. He said lawmakers who do not support improved gun safety will “pay a political price” because voters want change after December’s shooting at Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary School killed 20 first-graders and six staff.

However, Senate Democratic leaders have yet to gain enough votes to try again to pass background checks. National Rifle Association spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said those who voted against background checks are following the wishes of their constituents despite a campaign against them, including advertising being funded by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Biden announced the administration has completed or significantly advanced 21 of the 23 executive actions that Obama ordered in response to Sandy Hook. The two executive orders with the most remaining work are finalizing regulations to require insurers to cover mental health at parity with medical benefits, expected later this year, and putting a confirmed director at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Spain came under repeated attack starting Thursday in what authorities called linked terrorist incidents, when a driver swerved a van into crowds in Barcelona’s historic Las Ramblas district, killing more than a dozen people and injuring scores of others. Early Friday, an attempted attack unfolded in a town down the coast

If there’s one superhero character whose rise might be most tied to the events of World War II, it is Captain America, who emerged from the minds of legends Joe Simon and Jack Kirby and sprung forth from an iconic 1941 debut cover on which Cap smacks Hitler right in the kisser.

A customer dining at Washington’s Oceanaire restaurant noticed an unusual line at the bottom of his receipt: “Due to the rising costs of doing business in this location, including costs associated with higher minimum wage rates, a 3% surcharge has been added to your total bill.”